Older persons, or persons with certain chronic medical problems or risk factors such as severe obesity, are at a higher risk for certain types of incapacitating medical emergencies such as falling (especially falls resulting in bone fracture or other serious injury), heart attacks, acute asthma attacks or other respiratory emergencies, or so forth. Such persons are at risk for quickly becoming incapacitated and thereby being unable to seek medical assistance. Visiting nurses or in-home caregivers can partially address this problem, but are costly and usually cannot be with the at-risk person at all times. An at-risk person may carry a cellular telephone (cellphone) which can provide rapid access to assistance. However, cellphones are relatively bulky and may not be with the at-risk person during an incapacitating event, or may be lost during the event (e.g. the cellphone may be dropped during a severe fall). Cellphones also usually require significant cognitive capability to operate, and a person in pain after a severe fall, or undergoing a heart attack or asthma attack, may be unable to call for assistance using a cellphone. Another option is for the at-risk person to be admitted to a nursing home or other skilled nursing facility, but this option is also costly and is often contrary to the person's desire to maintain independence.
A Personal Emergency Response Service (PERS) is a dedicated system designed to provide at-risk persons with immediately accessible emergency assistance, so as to enable the at-risk person to continue to enjoy independence. These systems enable at-risk persons to live independently by providing them with peace-of-mind, knowing they have immediate access to emergency assistance if and when needed. In a typical PERS service, the at-risk person is provided with a call button in the form of a necklace-worn pendant or a bracelet. By pressing the call button, speakerphone console in the residence is activated, by which the at-risk person is placed into telephonic contact with an operator at a call center maintained by the PERS organization or provider. Based on the telephone number of the residence, the call center automatically determines the address and identity of the at-risk person, and this information is automatically displayed to the responding call center operator on a computer display, along with a profile of the at-risk person retrieved from a PERS database. This personal profile may include, by way of illustration, name, location, demographic information, a list of the person's known chronic conditions, a list of the person's medications, an identification of the nearest hospital, a list of emergency contacts (spouse, relative, friend), physician information, and so forth. With this information, the call center operator is well-equipped to converse with the at-risk person to assess the person's condition. If appropriate, the operator may call for appropriate assistance, such as notifying a neighbor listed in the person's PERS profile, or calling for an Emergency Dispatch (ED) in order to summon an ambulance to the at-risk person's residence. Additionally or alternatively, the call center operator may talk the person through the medical episode, for example by coaching the person through breathing exercises in order to recover from an asthmatic episode. On the other hand, if the responding call center operator is unable to communicate with the at-risk person who initiated the call, this may suggest the person has already become incapacitated and accordingly the operator immediately calls for an ED.
The following discloses a new and improved systems and methods that address the above referenced issues, and others.